


The Max Who Wasn't

by Rainboq



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: As Much as That Means Anything With Time Travel, F/F, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Loss of Control, Loss of Identity, POV Second Person, Weirdness, implied character deaths, letting go
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:35:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28432527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rainboq/pseuds/Rainboq
Summary: You just couldn't stop, could you?
Relationships: Maxine "Max" Caulfield/Chloe Price, Maxine "Max" Caulfield/Dana Ward, Maxine "Max" Caulfield/Kate Marsh, Maxine "Max" Caulfield/Victoria Chase, Rachel Amber/Maxine "Max" Caulfied/Victoria Chase/Kate Marsh/Chloe Price/Dana Ward, Rachel Amber/Maxine "Max" Caulfield
Comments: 28
Kudos: 44





	The Max Who Wasn't

You’re not sure when it broke. It wasn’t all at once. There was no great grinding of gears, no calamitous crash.

Like worn down brake pads, it just stopped working enough to matter and a tree at the bottom of the hill did the rest.

It’s your fault, you just couldn’t let go. You couldn’t stop. Stopping meant letting go of them, those women who had all been your world more times than you can count.

First you couldn’t let go of Chloe. That incredible blue-haired wonder your best friend had metamorphosed into. So full of pain but yearning to flap her clipped wings and be free at last, to live a life so cruelly denied to her for no reason at all. She deserved it, she deserved it and so so  _ so _ much more. And fate just had to fuck her over one last time so she could never enjoy it, so that she would always be haunted by more pain than anyone good should ever have to endure. You tried to save her even when she didn’t want to be, when she begged you not to.

That was when the problems started and the jumps stopped being cuts backwards and forwards in time, and started being replays. Not quite a passenger, not quite in control.

You had to stop. The weight on her soul was too much and she couldn’t take it. She pleaded with you until you finally gave in and went down another path.

Then came Victoria. You’re not sure why it was her next. Maybe it was to hurt yourself and the you who sometimes tried to wrestle at the controls.

What you didn’t expect was for her to be so all consuming. Chloe, when she could be, was the tender embrace of a gentle lover who’d known you longer than memory itself. Victoria was ravenous, devouring every scrap you could give and then returning it all with a passionate force that beggared belief. She was power, poise, insecurity and vulnerability wrapped in an extravagant bow. Her nails dug deep and her teeth deeper, stealing your breath away before bawling into your arms.

She was a roller coaster you didn’t want to get off even though you saw the gap in the tracks ahead.

The more you fought to keep her on the rails, the less in control you felt, and the more she fought you anyhow. She wanted that destructive end, she craved it like she craved you and she was never one to be denied.

Somehow Rachel was next. The impossible woman you only heard of reverently from Chloe and through clenched teeth from Victoria. A woman so wrapped up in mystery and lies that they bound her to a tragic and early grave. Meeting her was like finding yourself called to Mount Olympus and having Artemis running her fingers over your jaw.

And a huntress she was. Always with her eye on the prize, aim true as silver, even if she never revealed her goal until the end. You never stood a chance when those hazel eyes glittered with things you barely understood even with all your borrowed years. She always was the storm, and when her focus was on you, you were just as helpless as a newborn fawn.

Keeping Rachel’s life from killing her for as long as you did was an accomplishment. Rachel lived fast, laughed hard, and loved even harder. She left you spinning and dazed in ways Victoria could never imagine and Chloe did her best to imitate before she had the confidence to be herself. It was agony, ecstasy and apotheosis.

Every time your grip on the controls slipped a little more, but it felt so amazing until she made it clear she was done with you no matter what you tried.

Dana was a surprise. In retrospect she shouldn’t have been -- But you were never good with subtlety. You were at a dance, the Halloween one. You’d given up so much and lost so hard and were drinking to forget when she grabbed you and dragged you aside. She looked so concerned that you couldn’t hide the grief anymore. Lifetimes of pain wrapped up in your thin frail frame, aching for release. She only knew of one loss, not the countless ones you’d undone. She did her best and it was fun. None of the wildness of Rachel, none of the excess of Victoria, none of the pain of Chloe.

It didn’t last long. she wanted something else, but you were glad for what had been.

Kate was last. You collapsed in on yourself and she found the shattered pieces of the you that was more and more in control. Not that you minded. You barely wanted to touch them anymore. You were content to be a passenger and not cause any more pain unless you had to.

But Kate, poor, sweet Kate Marsh. She took a broken you and she bound you back together with gold and silver, faith and love until you felt whole again. She made you beautiful. You were her prize, the one she spent years missing and pondering what could have been. Never before had someone been so devoted to you, but Kate was never one for anything less than her full care and attention. She loved you, her touch was the closest to Chloe’s: kind, gentle, reassuring. She had a tentativeness that Chloe didn’t possess, like she was afraid of unravelling you if she did a single thing wrong. But when she did find her stride, she had this quiet passion all her own.

Kate lasted the longest in the end, but she had her own demons and they came calling for her. It was nobody’s fault. You both worked at it as hard as you could, but the nightmares of the things that hadn’t been got worse and worse around you the longer you were together. She tried to hide it until the bags under her eyes were so dark that she couldn’t. It tore her apart in ways you couldn’t handle, that you couldn’t abide. Kate deserved a love that didn’t hurt.

So, you grabbed for the levers one final time.

And the tree found you.

And now you’re stuck watching a you who is not you. Who is you without your pain, who is without your knowledge and yet is still you. She does the same things you would do, says the same things you would say until your lives have diverged enough that she isn’t anymore, yet you see how you could have been her.

You broke everything for them, and for you.

And now you can only watch as she lives this life without you, in a home filled with all the lovers you fought for, meshing together and forming something that works for all of them.

And it’s enough.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [Vulpixels](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChasingVulpixels/pseuds/ChasingVulpixels) and Lt.Dax for betaing this.
> 
> I stayed up too late and things got weird, hope you enjoy it.


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